Christina had left Michele’s home that afternoon with Michele’s heartfelt gratitude for even considering her and Allan worthy of such trust, and with her assurance that they would talk over Christina’s offer that night and pray together for God’s guidance.
Since then, it had set so heavy on her heart. She could hardly get her head around it; it was such a big deal. She’d actually called Allan to see if he could come home early so they could talk, but he couldn’t. He was working with a client right up until five. She’d told him they had something important to discuss, big enough to put dinner on hold when he got home.
He was upstairs getting changed now. Allan had suggested they take a walk. Something about a walk just made listening and thinking easier to do. She got up from her chair when she heard him coming down the stairs. “It’s really nice out right now,” she said.
“I could use some fresh air,” he said. “I hate being shut up in the office all day.” Half of Allan’s time was spent out in the field. He opened the front door for her. As she walked past him, he said, “So, what’s this big news? I can’t tell by the look on your face if it’s good or bad.”
They walked down the sidewalk, holding hands. “It’s not really a good or bad kind of thing. It’s just very unusual. Potentially life-changing.”
They reached the end of their walkway. “Which way do you want to go?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” They turned right, started walking up a slight incline.
“You’re not going to keep me guessing.”
“No, I won’t do that. I had a visit from Christina today. She texted me this morning saying she wanted to talk about something important.”
“Did she come to the house?”
“She did. I wasn’t at all prepared for what she had in mind. She wanted to know if you and I want to adopt her baby.”
“What? Really?”
Michele nodded. “She’s totally serious. She said she’s given it a lot of thought. And prayed about it too.”
“What brought this about? Do you know?”
“I guess she’s reached some fork in the road with the adoption agency she’s working with. She hasn’t used very much of their money yet, but that’s about to change. She said she’d feel guilty if she let them pay for some of the big-ticket items coming up and then pulled out of their arrangement.”
“So if we did this,” Allan said, “we wouldn’t be going through her agency?”
“No, if we did that, it would cost us just as much as anyone else.”
“So . . . we’d be doing, what, a private adoption?”
Michele nodded. “I don’t know what that involves, since I haven’t been looking into adoption, but I guess you just agree to pay the hospital costs and some attorney fees. Whatever it is, it’ll be a fraction of what it costs going through an agency.”
They walked in silence a few moments. “This really is big,” he said. “Bigger than when we decided about the house.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know. I did a little checking after she left. If we decide to do this, we’d have to do it soon. There’s all kinds of things we’d have to get started on. Lots of paperwork, sign up for a home study. All kinds of things.”
“So you’re thinking seriously about this?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
“I thought you were pretty much against the idea of adopting, until we’d gone through all the medical solutions to you getting pregnant.”
“I thought so too. I’m still kind of leaning in that direction, but now I don’t know. What if this is something God wants for us? It’s so out of the blue. Maybe God put the idea in Christina’s heart. If he did, I don’t want to shut it down because it doesn’t line up with my plans. And when I think about how much it costs to adopt the normal way . . .”
“I’ve heard over twenty-five-thousand dollars,” Allan said.
“Exactly.”
They made it to the stop sign at the end of their block. “Want to keep walking?” he asked.
She responded by tugging his arm to the right. There was a nice shady park at the end of the next street. They walked past two more townhomes without a word.
“It’s so hard to know what to do,” Allan finally said.
“I know.”
“This wasn’t even on my radar.”
“One thing I can tell,” Michele said, “Christina’s 100 percent committed to placing her baby with an adoptive couple, no matter what. If not us then someone else.” Michele thought about one other thing Christina had mentioned. “And she said something else that almost broke my heart.”
“What?”
Michele thought about that moment again. “Sometimes I take my family for granted. Even with all our problems, you forget when you’ve had something all your life, how much it matters to someone who’s never had any at all.”
“What did she say?”
“She thought about what it would be like—how awkward it would be—if you and I adopted her baby, and she stayed right here like she is now.”
That seemed to hit Allan. “Yeah, I guess that would be awkward.”
“She thought that through and said she knew if we did this, she’d have to leave our family for good. She’d even move out of the state, so she wouldn’t be in the way. She was crying as she said it.”
Allan shook his head. “That’s pretty heavy. She really loves it here, loves your folks especially.” They walked a few more steps. “That would make it pretty hard for me. Thinking we were responsible for basically putting her in exile.”
“I don’t like that part of it, either. But if I’m being honest, and we decided to do this, I’d be glad she’s willing to do something like that. I know it works for some people, but I think it would be hard for me to bond with an adopted baby if the birth mom was constantly involved.”
“Is that your gut instinct? You think we should do this?”
She sighed. “I don’t think I have a gut instinct about this. Since Christina left this afternoon, I’ve been spending about ten seconds at a time, going back and forth between being thrilled and scared to death.”
Allan laughed, took a deep breath. “I think I’ll be joining you on that roller coaster in a few minutes. This isn’t the kind of thing you figure out. And it’s not like there’s a Bible verse that speaks to it, none that come to mind anyway. We’re just going to need to pray, really pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to make it clear. To give us the wisdom to know what to do, and to give it to us in a way that we can understand. When does she need to know by?”
“She didn’t say. Just soon.”
He looked up ahead. “There’s that nice park. Let’s aim for the bench under that big oak tree. I don’t see anyone around, so let’s just sit there and give this whole thing to God. It might take a little while for us to discern what he wants us to do, but I’m confident he’ll make it clear.”
Michele liked this. It was great being connected with her husband again.